Mediobanca,un passo avanti e due indietro

Nessun giornale italiano ha scritto queste cose su Mediobanca, Geronzi, Profumo, Draghi. L’ha fatto l’Economist.

• L'età media dei candidati al consiglio di sorveglianza di piazzetta Cuccia è di 57 anni e tra questi mancano nomi americani, nonostante le dichiarate ambizioni di muoversi all'estero.
• Troppe cose sono anacronistiche, specialmente il futuro presidente Cesare Geronzi che ha una scarsa esperienza internazionale e viene da quel mondo romano da cui Mediobanca ha sempre mantenuto una salutare distanza.
• Mr Geronzi ha anche problemi di natura giudiziaria.
• Mediobanca dovrebbe essere oggetto di uno 'spezzatino' delle sue diverse attività ma questo non accadrà perché è governata da un patto di cui Capitalia e Unicredit sono i membri più importanti. Il potere di questi patti è il chiaro segnale di come il sistema bancario italiano non ha ancora raggiunto la modernità.
• Non getta una buona luce il fatto che Alessandro Profumo appoggi Geronzi e che Mr Draghi chiuda un occhio sui suoi problemi giudiziari.

Nello stesso giorno il Corriere della Sera ha trovato più opportuno citare un altro articolo dell’Economist, quello sulla Barilla “prima pasta negli Usa”. Va bene, tutti sanno che Mediobanca è il primo azionista di Rcs-CorrieredellaSera: ma alla decenza c’è un limite.

Il pezzo dell’Economist inizia così:

"Nel coro di lodi per la giovane generazione che sta traghettando il sistema bancario italiano nel ventunesimo secolo, è stato facile non notare qualche nota dissonante". Fin troppo facile.

L'articolo originale dell'Economist

One step forward, two steps back Jun 21st 2007

Thumbs down for Italy's supposedly shining new breed of bankers

AMID the loud chorus of approval for the youngish crowd dragging Italy's banking system into the 21st century, it has been easy to miss a few dissonant notes. Though Mario Draghi, the central-bank governor, has approved cross-border takeovers, so far foreign banks are not at the top of the league. And the older generation of bankers, who for decades ran Italian banks like a gentlemen's club, still seems to call too many of the shots. How else to explain the goings on at Mediobanca, a renowned Milanese investment bank? It had recently started to shake off the legacy of its powerful founder, Enrico Cuccia, only to find itself in thrall to another old-style capitalist, 72-year-old Cesare Geronzi. On June 27th Mediobanca's shareholders are due to approve articles of association that will establish a dual structure of supervisory and management boards. Mediobanca's managers hope that the new structure will allow them freedom to expand abroad and to increase activities like proprietary trading at home. Alas, the list of candidates for the supervisory board has an average age of 57, not much lower than that of the present board; and for a bank with international ambitions, there is a conspicuous lack of American names. Too many look like anachronisms, especially the prospective chairman, Mr Geronzi, who chairs Capitalia, an Italian bank that agreed to be taken over by its bigger rival, UniCredit, in May. He appears to owe his job at Mediobanca to Alessandro Profumo, boss of UniCredit, even though Mr Geronzi is more at home in the political hurly-burly of Rome, from where Mediobanca has always kept a healthy distance, and has little international experience. Mr Geronzi also has legal problems. In December he was sentenced to a year and eight months in prison, against which he is appealing, for involvement in a corporate bankruptcy. Courts in Rome and Parma are expected to decide in July on Mr Geronzi's indictment for alleged responsibility in the collapse of two food companies. “Geronzi's chairmanship will send a completely wrong message. It will be a kick in the teeth for [Mediobanca],” declares John Andrew, chairman of Eidos Partners, a boutique investment bank in Milan. All of which should be unsettling for Mediobanca's managers, led by Alberto Nagel. After Mr Cuccia's death, aged 92, seven years ago, Mediobanca appeared to be doomed. It lost money in 2003, its back-room sway over business dynasties such as the Agnellis dissipated. Since then, its mergers-and-acquisitions business has bounced back, however, and in the year to July 2006 the bank made net profits of €494m ($601m). Yet it is still partly a prisoner of its past. Its consumer-credit and leasing operations sit awkwardly in an investment bank. It also has large strategic stakes in Assicurazioni Generali, Italy's biggest insurer, and in RCS Media Group, which owns Corriere della Sera, Italy's main newspaper. Together they account for more than half of its €14bn value. Mediobanca should be broken up, but that will not happen because it is governed by a shareholders' pact that has Capitalia and UniCredit as its biggest members. The power of these pacts is a clear sign that Italian banking has not yet joined the modern age. That new stars such as Mr Profumo blatantly used them to support Mr Geronzi, and Mr Draghi apparently turned a blind eye to the man's legal problems, does not reflect well on them either.